


Hold Me Tight

by antonomasia09



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), House of Ashes, Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, F/F, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, stab wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-09 14:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19477591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonomasia09/pseuds/antonomasia09
Summary: Eglan will die before she lets her father's book fall into the lich's hands. Ophelia is utterly determined that Eglan will live.





	Hold Me Tight

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a Hamlet-themed D&D game. Our team was hired by an old woman called Eglan Asher (Eglan pronounced "Ei-lan") to go to her family's ancestral house and retrieve a book that had been left there. Over the course of the game, we discovered that the woman who hired us was lying about her identity; she was in fact a lich, who killed everyone in the Asher house while searching for the book many years ago. The real Eglan Asher died protecting the book, and her girlfriend Ophelia died as well, trying to draw the lich away from Eglan.
> 
> This was supposed to be a fix-it where Eglan and Ophelia both live. I'm... not sure if I succeeded or not.

The pain from the stab wound in Eglan’s stomach was _shockingly_ bad. She had hoped to suffer it stoically, like the heroes she’d read about in her father’s library, or, better yet, not even feel the wound in the rush of adrenaline. After all, hadn’t the tapestry in her father’s study depicted heroic Carcaern continuing to fight Bismer the hag even after she sliced open his swordarm? Eglan had no idea how. It was all she could do to drag herself along the hallway by her fingernails, too tired to even scream as the motion tore her wound open further.

A faint sound behind her made her freeze. Eglan summoned one last spurt of energy to turn her head back over her shoulder, determined to face her murderer head on.

But instead of the lich, it was Ophelia. She had one hand over her mouth in horror, which she dropped as she rushed forward and fell to her knees to cradle Eglan in her arms. Eglan let herself go limp with relief and tried to focus on nothing but Ophelia’s hand stroking her hair, and Ophelia’s lips covering her forehead with kisses.

But there wasn’t enough time. “Ophelia,” she whispered, reaching into her dress to pull out her father’s journal. “Take the book. It’s why she came here. It’s why she killed…” Eglan couldn’t finish the sentence. Her whole family, the entire Asher line, dead.

Ophelia just shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’m going to save you.” Her tears dripped onto Eglan’s face, mixing with Eglan’s own.

“You can’t. Just take it and run.”

But Ophelia was already shifting, pulling Eglan up against her chest, and then maneuvering so she could get her hands under Eglan’s arms. “I can’t carry you all the way to town,” she said, thinking aloud, “But we can hide in the cellar where we always meet. Nobody knows about it. She’ll give up eventually; she has to. Once she’s gone, I’ll find a healer for you.”

Eglan tried to protest again, to no effect. Ophelia was stubborn enough that Eglan rarely won an argument even at her best, and right now she was barely hanging on to consciousness.

Eglan utterly failed to hold back her scream as Ophelia dragged her to her feet. Both froze for a moment, but when the lich didn’t appear, Ophelia wrapped one of Eglan’s arms around her shoulders and set off as quickly as she could down the hallway, Eglan biting back a whimper with every step they took. 

She expected to get caught at any moment, but they made it down the stairs and into the coldroom above the cellar without incident. A scream echoed from the servants’ quarters before cutting off abruptly, causing both girls to shudder.

Ophelia propped Eglan against the wall, gave her a short but desperate kiss, and then began shoving aside the flour sacks that concealed the cellar’s entrance. Eglan rested her head against the frigid metal, shivered, and tried not to fall over.

She admired Ophelia’s optimism, and didn’t doubt her stubbornness. After all, Ophelia had managed to convince Eglan to enter into a relationship with her, even knowing what the rest of the Ashers would think about Eglan courting a serving girl. 

But Eglan wasn’t going to live long enough for a doctor. 

If only she could make Ophelia see sense. The rest of Eglan’s family was dead, and she would be joining them shortly. But Ophelia still had a chance to live, and so did the townsfolk, as long as the book stayed out of Eviscera’s hands.

“Wait there,” Ophelia said, and disappeared into the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a candle and a metal box. “First aid kit,” she explained, tilting the box so that the pointed oval with circles above and below etched into the lid was visible. Eglan nodded jerkily, although she wasn’t sure what good it would do. A minor healing potion might be enough to stop the bleeding, but it wouldn’t help with the internal damage.

Ophelia wrenched open the trapdoor to the cellar, and eased Eglan down the steep staircase as gently as possible. It still hurt enough that the world went fuzzy for awhile.

When Eglan swam her way back to awareness, Ophelia was grinding powders with shaky hands and muttering quietly to herself. Eglan thought she heard the name of the god Piurath repeated a few times, and wheezed, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you pray before.”

Ophelia glared at her, but Eglan thought she saw a measure of relief in her gaze as well. “I wasn’t sure you would wake up,” she said, her voice cracking a little on the last word.

“I wish I hadn’t,” Eglan groaned through a wave of pain. Ophelia dropped the mortar and pestle immediately, and rushed over, murmuring reassurances and rubbing a comforting hand up and down Eglan’s back. Eglan leaned into it and breathed.

Once the spasm died down, Ophelia dropped her face to Eglan’s shoulder for a moment, then went back to the discarded potion-in-progress and dumped the powders into a metal cup, swirling them with water.

“I’m not sure how well this will work,” Ophelia admitted. “I’ve never made a healing potion before, and some of the herbs looked rather wilted.”

Self-doubt wasn’t an expression that should ever belong on Ophelia’s face, Eglan thought. “Better than nothing,” she said, and managed a small smile, which Ophelia returned.

Ophelia helped her sit up, and lifted the cup to Eglan’s mouth.

The concoction tasted vile, and it was difficult to swallow, so a fair amount ended up running down Eglan’s chin. Part of her mind fretted about staining her dress; she chided it that now was not the time. Ophelia stroked her back and hair as she shuddered.

A tingling sensation like hundreds of lightly pricking needles erupted across her abdomen, and she doubled over, kicking her legs, trying to find relief. And then, as quickly as it had started, the feeling was gone. She sat up slowly, brushing a tentative hand across her stomach. It came away bloody, but there was a fresh, thin, pink layer of skin over the wound, and nothing felt obviously wrong underneath. Better than she could have hoped for in her wildest dreams.

“Thank you,” she whispered. Ophelia just clutched her close and buried her face in Eglan’s hair for a moment.

When she pulled away, there were tears on her face, but she wiped them away briskly. “We should figure out what our next move is,” she said. “You may not be bleeding anymore but you’re certainly not up for any sort of running or fighting at the moment.”

Eglan shifted a little, and winced at the lingering pain. “You’re right,” she agreed. “So you should take the book and get it out of here.”

Ophelia’s refusal was immediate and flat. “Absolutely not.”

“There’s still a chance that she’ll find us down here,” Eglan pointed out. “You weren’t able to hide the trapdoor, were you?”

“No,” Ophelia admitted quietly.

“Take the book,” Eglan begged. “Give it to the clerics at the temple. They’ll know how to keep it safe.”

“And what about you?”

“I would just slow you down.” She could see Ophelia start to protest, but she held out a hand. “I’ll be fine here. Please, I need you to do this for me.”

Ophelia wilted at that. She never could stand up to Eglan’s begging.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll take it. But I swear to you that I’ll come back. And I need you to promise that you’ll be here waiting for me.”

Eglan smiled. “I’m not going anywhere.”

**Author's Note:**

> And then Ophelia succeeds in getting the book out of the house without getting caught. She brings it to the clerics in town, who destroy it, thereby destroying the lich. Ophelia goes back and gets Eglan, and they live happily ever after with moderate-to-severe PTSD. :)


End file.
